Whenever you might have searched for any query in Google, you might have seen the image results on front page. Just like this:

Images are great way to drive traffic and thus it is important that we should not neglect image optimization for our blog. Optimizing image for search engines is not a rocket science, you just need to remember few things like:

File naming:

When you select any image for your post, make sure that you are not violating any copyright issues. Once the image is selected, name it properly. Generally when we take screenshots or download an image, generally the file name is D123xxxx.jpg, this name of file is not good when it comes to SEO. Always rename the file name to make it relevant for post. Like if I am writing a review about Google Analytics then I will rename the screenshot image to “Google-Analytics.jpg” , that is use keywords in image name. Try to use file extensions like .jpg, .png,.gif,.bmp.

Resize image:

While using images from stock websites or even if you are using your own images make a habit to resize it. Resizing image means comprising your post image so that it can load faster and search engines prefer to index images which load faster. You can also prefer cropping the unwanted image area or use image comprising tool or resize image toolto resize your image but make sure it is not ruining the quality of your images.

Alt Text:

Alt Text is another important factor to remember when it comes to image optimization. Alt text helps you and search engine to know what exactly image is about. Adding a relevant and “to the point” Alt tag in image helps in SEO. You can read more about Alt Text in our previous articles about how to add ALT tag to your images.

Robot.txt file:

While placing the image in folder make sure that folder is not blocked by robot.txt file. Keep your image folder properly organized which makes search engine spiders to navigate easily through the folders. This will help search engines to rank your post images otherwise it would be tough to get good rank in image search.

Avoid stuffing keywords:

When it comes to SEO, keyword is first thing which clicks in everyone’s mind and it is same with image SEO. But as we avoid stuffing keywords in our articles, we must avoid stuffing too much keywords in images also in Alt text, file names, captions etc. Search engines are very smart and know that keywords are used ethically or not. So if you want to drive targeted traffic to your blog make sure that you keep your hands off from keyword stuffing in your images.

These are few important things which should never be ignored while image optimization. If you want to share few more tips, then do drop in comments. Lets discuss more about Image Optimization.

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COMMENTs ( 10 )

Hey, I want to write a DIY guide as my next blog post for illustrating our readers in better way, for that I need to take screenshots. Can I use screenshots after cropping them without crediting them ? Also, is it good idea to take screenshots of other websites and watermark them of my website name after cropping ? I usually use a online tool of website to change .png files to .jpeg format so that its size get lesser thus making the post to load faster, am I doing right ?

images are useless ,if they have no alt text in terms of search engines .Alt text tell search engines” post is about to “.File name should be given properly .
Nice article ,thanks for the great article.

I would say the alt text is the most important attribute for image SEO as it tells the search engines what the image is about. Search engines just read text so images to them are empty text unless they are tagged with alt text.

Same as Sathish said,
Robots.txt for image files ?
M planning to change the directory nesting from deep nesting to root folder,better for google crawler!! this is my way of thinking,if m wrong please do rectify me :)
Lemme try out !
& one last question wont optimising images for Google would increase bounce rate ??

Thanks for your views Basant. Many bloggers don’t know about creative common images and even avoid giving credit link which should be taken care of. Watermark is another must have thing to have in article images, for watermarking we can use lots of free tools available online or can use Windows Live Writer too.

Image optimization is necessary if you need to drive traffic from flickr, google images and other sites. But one thing i like to add for tech blogs traffic from google images is not good and google loves content, not the images.